s Macaulay, seems to have more
foundation in reason than is generally the case with a literary canon,
"for the world, we believe, is pretty well agreed in thinking that the
shorter a prize poem is, the better."

Trinity men find it difficult to understand how it was that he missed
getting one of the three silver goblets given for the best English
Declamations of the year. If there is one thing which all Macaulay's
friends, and all his enemies, admit, it is that he could declaim
English. His own version of the affair was that the Senior Dean, a
relative of the victorious candidate, sent for him and said: "Mr.
Macaulay, as you have not got the first cup, I do not suppose that you
will care for either of the others." He was consoled, however, by the
prize for Latin Declamation; and in 1821 he established his classical
repute by winning a Craven University scholarship in company with his
friend Malden, and Mr. George Long, who preceded Malden as Professor of
Greek at University College, London.

Macaulay detested the labour of manufacturing Greek and Latin verse in
cold blood as an exercise; and his Hexameters were never up to the best
Etonian mark, nor his Iambics to the highest standard of Shrewsbury. He
defined a scholar as one who reads Plato with his feet on the fender.
When already well on in his third year he writes: "I never practised
composition a single hour since I have been at Cambridge." "Soak your
mind with Cicero," was his constant advice to students at that time of
life when writing Latin prose is the most lucrative of accomplishments.
The advantage of this precept was proved in the Fellowship examination
of the year 1824, when he obtained the honour which in his eyes was the
most desirable that Cambridge had to give. The delight of the young man
at finding himself one of the sixty masters of an ancient and splendid
establishment; the pride with which he signed his first order for the
college plate, and dined for the first time at the high table in his
own right; the reflection that these privileges were the fruit, not
of favour or inheritance, but of personal industry and ability,--were
matters on which he loved to dwell long after the world had loaded
him with its most envied prizes. Macaulay's feeling on this point is
illustrated by the curious reverence which he cherished for those
junior members of the college who, some ninety years ago, by a spirited
remonstrance addressed to the governing body, broug